Jane,
the heroine of jackalopes, is bad at magic. The reason for this is
twofold. On one side every hero must have a flaw. Jane´s is being
bad at magic (and her curiosity making her fiddle around with
machinery she knows nothing about and reading every private letter
and report she comes across). The second reason is that it prevents
the plot from being resolved too easily. By making Jane bad at magic
I am forced to come up with more interesting ways for her to handle
her problems than just waving her hand. I also dislike putting some
ancients law in place that governs the rule of magic, like:
“Oh
Mr Wizard, a great beast is attacking us! Could you find it in our
heart to perchance throw a few fireballs his way?”
“Oh,
but I am bound by the vague and not to mention ancient laws not to interfere,
so have fun being chewed to bits. Maybe I could offer some advice
about your destiny as a hero? Oh, guess you are already dead...”
The
only series I have seen that has restrictions on magic and makes it
come over as natural is the Discworld series, where magic is
repeatedly demonstrated as being rather like nuclear power and you
really should not overuse it.
When
I read a fantasy story I usually like to think about how magic works
in the world described. Even if a author´s world is full of wizards
and may even have some as main characters the nature and mechanics
behind magic is not usually described in detail. The reason for this
can vary. Perhaps the author feel silly describing methods that do
not work in the real world, thus forcing an unnecessary suspension of
disbelief. Perhaps the authors wishes to avoid religious people going
crazy about how “the book teaches witchcraft”. Nevertheless I
have though a little about it and decided on how magic works in my
stories.
While
rereading the Harry Potter series as well as my all-time favorite
book Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (in anticipation of the upcoming
BBC series in May) I came up with a few neat ideas. Magic in Harry
Potter seems to come down to innate talent and repetition. You repeat
words and motions with your wand and the magic is done. In most cases
you must do something special, like imagine something funny to ward
of a boggart or something happy to drive off a dementor, but magic
seems to come down to training and will. In Jonathan Strange and Mr
Norrell, magic comes down to studying and changing and improving
existing spells according to general principals, and anybody can do
it. Often the characters have to createe their own spells using
magical theory. There are however some spells that simply do not work
since there are not enough magic left in England (where the novel
takes place) since the magician king and his fairies left. Personally I
think, if magic worked and being a magician was a job just like any
other, I figure it would be a lot like programming. At first you
learn easy things like:
<html>
<body>
<p>Hello World!</p>
</body>
<p>Hello World!</p>
</body>
</html>
And
changing it to:
<html>
<body>
<p>This is my magical spell!</p>
</body>
<p>This is my magical spell!</p>
</body>
</html>
In
my mind, learning magic would be more like sitting with dreary
textbooks and learning the multiplication-tables instead of the
somewhat colorful magic of both Harry Potter and Jonathan Strange and
Mr Norrell and being a magician is rather like being an overworked
civil servant. At first you will not be able to do that much, and
even then only accomplish things others have created for you, making
small changes as you go along. Only after learning the basics can you
learn to change the programming (or spell) to create your own stuff.
After enough training, you may even be able to use several languages (or schools of magic, red, blue, grey and so forth) to make your very own website (or spellbook)! I imagine code be like spells, it is easy to make them work but a really talented programmer or mage may streamline the code/spells so that little memory/mana is used. The code must also be tidy so other magicians can use it easily and co-operation for big magical projects made possible.
After enough training, you may even be able to use several languages (or schools of magic, red, blue, grey and so forth) to make your very own website (or spellbook)! I imagine code be like spells, it is easy to make them work but a really talented programmer or mage may streamline the code/spells so that little memory/mana is used. The code must also be tidy so other magicians can use it easily and co-operation for big magical projects made possible.
Hope
that made sense...
Link
to chapter 4-5:
http://www.tymorthetrickster.com/Jchapter4.htmlhttp://www.tymorthetrickster.com/Jchapter5.html
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